Forum:I need help from the Creators
Hello everyone of the Phineas and Ferb wiki and hello Dan and Jeff if you're reading! I apologise if this is the wrong place for such a post, however I am knew and hope that you can forgive me! I am seeking some advice. I have an idea for a cartoon series of my own, I know the characters and the plot pretty well but what next? Should I write the first episode as a script or as a storyboard? Are there any pieces of advice or tips anyone could give me? Any dos or don'ts? As you can probably tell, I'm in a hole and need help digging out! It would be amazing if someone could put me in direct contact with any of the creators, writers or storyboard artists. Of course I do not expect their email addresses to be flown all over the site but I would love to get in touch with someone more in the know than myself! Any help is appreciated, Cheers, Ashley Sykes : Dan and Swampy don't often stop by since they're so busy with the show, so let me see if I can answer some of the questions for you. :# Should I write the first episode as a script or as a storyboard? You probably could write the episodes using either method. Most animated shows are scripted first and then the storyboard is done afterwards. Dan and Swampy chose to do the storyboard first for two reasons. The first is that this is the method used by some of the classic cartoons, such as those by Tex Avery. The second is because Ferb has so few lines and uses more physical expressions, it makes his dialogue in the script look strange or more difficult to write ahead of time. :# Are there any pieces of advice or tips anyone could give me? Draw every day. This was an answer Dan and Swampy gave for a question about just being an artist. It will help you refine your technique. Even voice actors refine their characters. Listen to Phineas' voice in "Rollercoaster" and compare it to "The Lake Nose Monster". When Futurama started out, Professor Farnsworth's voice was very similar to Fry's because both were done by Billy West, but now they are more distinct from each other. :# Any dos or don'ts? If you have a dream, go for it. This is another tip from Dan and Swampy. When you say "I want to be..." or "I want to do...", a lot of times that is followed up by someone giving you all the practical reasons why it won't work. Those can help you be aware of things that you'll run into along the way, but treat it as advice and make your own decision on how to proceed. :# Another tip: A common piece of advice is "Do what you love and work won't seem like work". A related bit of advice came from Dan or Swampy (I think) and it went something like this: "If you love what you do, there will always be enough money. If you do what you do only for the money, there will never be enough." :# Another tip: Don't limit your learning. Another easy thing to do is to say, "I'm not interested in this subject, so I'm not going to bother learning it". This would mostly be for classes in school that are not electives, but could be for anything else you might experience. The problem with saying you're not going to bother learning it is that's short-sighted because you never know if it's going to be useful to you in the future. For example, I've solved problems on my job in the past couple of years by using techniques that I learned while programming my Commodore 64 computer 30 years ago. :# Another tip: There are a lot of books on the subject of creating animated cartoons. I bought Creating Animated Cartoons with Character by Joe Murray because it included a discussion of Rocko's Modern Life, which Dan and Swampy worked on. Amazon has several other recommendations for developing both traditional animation and computer animation. :# Last tip: While it's important for you to come up with your own ideas, study the work of other artists and animated shows. They may show you techniques on drawing you didn't know. : That's all I have at the moment. —RRabbit42 (leave a message) 03:38, February 5, 2012 (UTC) I